Phase Weaponry
One of the most common types of energy weapon in use with nearly every Faction. These cannon use a carrier beam to fire a stream of phased particles at a target, increasing both their damage against shields and the chances of penetrating energy defenses. Starship Grade -Spinal Mount Phase Cannon -Phase Cannon Array (Boosted Turret) -Phase Cannon Turret -Pulse Cannon Vehicle Grade -Micro Phase Cannon Man Portable -Phase Rifle -Pulse Pistol On all man portable phase weaponry there is a hidden setting. Safe, Stun, Kill, Hidden This is the AI War protocol setting, which fires a powerful directed EMP. Useless against larger vehicles like tanks except from within, it is intended to deal with small drones, usually smaller than a human or dro'all. They were used to good effect during the Dominion's first and only AI rebellion to supress warrior model boarding drones and nanite swarms. While once as easy as flipping a switch, modern phase weapons require manual modification to properly operate in this mode. If done improperly it will fry the weapon after a single use. Despite these risks older veterans of campaigns before the advent of Republic anti-tank weapons often used a rifle with this configuration set to overload to disable tanks at close range. This was often done by throwing them from cover. Starship Grade Exact numbers can vary by make and model. Spinal mount Phase cannons and Phase cannons turrets fire a beam of energy, usually lasting 2-4 second in duration. Pulse weapons, as their name implies, fire a powerful burst of energy rather than firing a continuous beam. While this does more damage per shot they suffer from reduced effective range. Array type weapons make use of a larger surface area of phasing lattice. This can increase the overall power the weapon packs per shot. Array type pulse weapons are possible allowing greater firepower, though this makes them more expensive to produce. Phase Beam, Spinal Mount Spinal Mount Heavy Phase Cannon Aperture: 30-40m Diameter: 40m (60m with armor and secondary cooling systems.) Length: 195-250m (+500m improved focusing systems, reduced shield diffusion) Spinal Mount Phase Cannon Aperture: 10-12m Diameter: 15m (20m with armor and secondary cooling systems.) Length: 146m Phase Beam, Turret & Array Heavy Phase Cannon Turret & Array Ball Turret Diameter: 40m Phase Cannon Turret & Array Ball Turret Diameter: 30m Light Phase Cannon Turret & Array Ball Turret Diameter: 18m Pulse Cannons (Heavy)Pulse Cannon Array NOTE: Entire weapon surface area acts as aperture. Width: 40-60m (Front profile) Length: 55-70m Heavy Pulse Cannon Aperture: 35-40m Diameter: 50-60m Length: 80-100m Light Pulse Cannon / Turret Aperture: 10-12m Diameter: 14-16m Length: 30m Phased EM Pulse Emitter (Republic) Aperture: 35-40m Diameter: 50-60m Length: 40m Twin Linked phase cannon Twin linked phase cannons are difficult and expensive to maintain. Their field of fire is also limited. Because of this attack corvettes only made up 10% of Dominion corvette forces in 4023. With the increased threat of the Neeran these concerns were shelved in favor of the greater firepower they offered. By 4033 greater than 70% of all Dominion corvettes mounted these weapons as did several types of attack cruisers. Their effective range is less than those of heavy phase cannons resulting in many larger warships continuing to mount the cheaper alternative. Vehicle Grade -Micro Phase Cannon Similar in construction to spinal mount phase cannons. As starfighters lack the generator output of larger starships the size of these weapons is limited. Aperture: 10-20 cm Diameter: 14-30 cm Length: 4.3m History All phased energy weapons have a higher chance of penetrating shields compared to conventional laser and particle beams. Many conventional torpedo designs have been coated in a phasing lattice to improve chances of shield penetration. With proper tuning phased energy weapons can completely cut through shields but it requires matching the correct frequency. After the Dominion figured out how to harden shields against kinetic weapons used by the Terrans it forced them to look for other options. For a couple centures there was a bit of an arms race over finding ways to match phase weapons to enemy shield frequencies. Eventually shield tech reached the point where only the more powerful phase weapons had a chance of punching through it. After this it's believed the Terrans and Dominion started looking for their own solutions to this. The Terrans with subspace weapons, the Dominion with linked phase weapons. Category:Weapons Category:Technology